(Yicai Global) April 20 -- Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau has been integrated into Shanghai Customs, per the requirements of China's institutional reform. The move will improve the city’s cross-border trade efficiency and cut the cost of import and export customs clearance procedures, further improving business environment for investors and companies.

The merger will help Shanghai Customs cut nearly one-third of the time required to handle goods and reduce export and import compliance costs by another 10 percent, said Tan Wu, deputy head of the city’s customs authority, in a press conference yesterday.

Official data show that Shanghai Customs’ average time for import clearance was 18.77 hours last year, down 36.2 percent from the year earlier, while it was 1.32 hours for export clearance, a decline of nearly 35 percent.

On March 20, relevant departments of Shanghai Customs introduced a series of policies to optimize business environment for cross-border trade at ports, including promoting joint operations of customs inspection, customs clearance and logistics, advancing paperless logistics operations, further improving and standardizing port charges and clearance service mechanisms.

The value of imports and exports made through Shanghai’s ports accounts for nearly a quarter of the country's total that amounted to USD4.1 trillion last year. Thus, reforming Shanghai Customs will directly affect China’s cross-border trade output.